


Edeleth shorts, prompts and one-shots

by haigokurarabai



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internal Monologue, Pre-Time Skip, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-26 17:50:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20934269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haigokurarabai/pseuds/haigokurarabai
Summary: Short writing projects done for a discord fan community, uploaded weekly.





	1. Soliloquy/Sunrise

**Author's Note:**

> A walk home alone, after the tiring work of the day.
> 
> In the quiet of the woods one's thoughts tend to wander.

The night air was freezing as the Flame Emperor stalked the long and silent forest path back toward the monastery, but the chill of night could not, would not, settle in that ruined body. Beneath her mask, beneath her disguise, her blood boiled in her veins. Silvery breaths of steam issued from the joints in the Emperor's armor, forged by unknown means, by unnatural individuals.

By her allies. By her torturers.

The techniques used to construct it had, as promised, made it little heavier than a quilted coat and simple jack chains -- not that she'd have been troubled by its weight were it crudely hammered from cheap iron, with what _they'd_ made of her -- and even then the distribution of that weight was so flawlessly even it may as well have weighed nothing at all. Yet each time she donned it her armor grew heavier.

Her breath came out in burning clouds that coiled around her mask, obscuring her sight till with an almost-inaudible grunt of irritation she came to a halt, reaching up to remove her helmet. It was the dead of evening, and she carried no lantern; twilight was hours away yet. The possibility of being discovered by villagers or patrolling knights at this juncture was almost zero; should it come to that, she would simply have to... pity the poor soul.

And make another burdensome request of Hubert, though she was aware that by now he was used to it.

... She had looked so

(_stop_.)

Another breath came out, shuddering, strained. Her chest was tight. This had all been... trying. Terribly so. This incident, this... This what? _Betrayal?_ As though she had the right to so much as think the word. This... breakdown in the chain of command. Or communication, perhaps. Or intention. Honestly, she had no idea and her head would not stop spinning as she ran through every possible scenario in every possible permutation.

Perhaps there was dissension in the ranks of her allies. Perhaps some thought she was likely to fail; while their lack of faith in her was galling to her pride, it was almost forgivable given the odds. If it was anyone else but her they'd be right to doubt. If she had not been _as she now was, molded by their hand,_ the notion of a wisp of a girl delivering the head of a monster on a platter would be laughable. But they knew that, surely.

So most likely the purpose was to discomfit her or to eventually kill her, which comfortingly slotted in with her assumptions about her uncle's eventual intentions anyway.

She could probably have figured it out had she had the

(_shut up. foolish child._)

the pro

(_STOP THINKING ABOUT HER. remember their faces._)

The Flame Emperor had been walking without intention or conscious thought, following the path that Hubert and Kronya had prepared and confirmed for her; the information on the knight's patrol routes had assured her the best chance of safe entrance and egress between patrols along this route. Time was of the essence in returning without being seen in such... incriminating condition. She still needed to make time to debrief with the both of them in private when she returned, as the... unpleasantness at Remire hadn't left her enough time or proper assurance of secrecy to be able to discuss matters in depth. And while she had hours yet, the first twinkling of twilight would begin to lighten the sky well before she _needed_ to be back, strictly speaking. But her feet stilled and she stood in the dark copse of trees listening to the wind rustle bare branches under the chill of the red wolf moon, alone.

(_alone._)

Alone as she should be.

(_alone on this bloody path_.)

With no one close enough to hurt her.

(_with no one close enough to hurt._)

Yes.

The Flame Emperor took in a breath, deep and slow, filling her lungs with air so cold it burned her throat, and began to take another step. But she needn't _be_ alone if only Byleth would have listened to--

A ragged scream of frustration wrenched itself from the young girl's mouth as she hurled her helmet against the trunk of a tree, her flesh and blood igniting with stolen power in her sudden rage, the porcelain-white Agarthan metal cracking from crown to chin in a jagged line. Edelgard stood frozen, her face red and her breathing heavy, hands twisted into furious claws, eyes wild and hair matted to her temples and forehead. There followed a muffled scurrying as those animals that still slumbered in bare branches or beneath the snow fled from the cannon-shot sound of the impact; she stared, thoughts a simmering haze, at the pale white of splintered wood revealed beneath shattered bark. Time was of the essence but she did not move for a quarter-bell, except to breathe deep angry breaths and clench her mailled fists.

Futile.

(_and pathetic._)

After long minutes the silence of the forest was broken by a deep and desperate sob that Edelgard did not realize was her own until she heard it echoing back to her. Halting steps led her to her ruined helm and shaking hands tucked it under her arm.

Not the end of the world. There were places to divest herself of her armor without fear of its discovery or hers. With the unrest across the continent spreading as a result of her allies' actions and the archbishop's disinterest she could concoct a believable lie of needing to flee into the woods to avoid unknown strangers on the road and show up tomorrow at the monastery with a harrowing tale of escape from bandits. She would miss the Professor's morning lecture--

How odd. Another sob.

The Emperor's cape grew filthy as jagged bark and dirty snow matted into it while she slowly slumped back against the tree, legs giving out till she had collapsed onto the freezing snowbank with a soft crunch.

She

(_you love her. poor idiot girl._)

Her arms rested on her knees and her head hung between them. The moon shone down on her as she sat motionless, wasting precious time. She could not afford this. She did not have time to mourn what had always been beyond her reach, but her legs would not move and she lacked the will to even curl a finger as she sat in the cold, taking slow, measured breaths, pierced by desperate cries and quiet whimpers as her mental fortress crumbled.

The look in her eyes. The _hatred._ She was right. She had been ready to cut her student down in that moment and she was right to. She _should_ have! For all she'd done and the compromises she'd squared herself with and for what she would go on to do on her path to a brighter dawn for everyone

(_except yourself._)

... Except herself. No light in the darkness for her. Her empire would have no place in it for monsters.

She still could not will herself to move even after her breathing steadied, and this once, this night. Only tonight. She would allow herself to surrender, and then, after this weakness passed through her system, she would be able to focus again on what she needed to.

And so Edelgard let herself think unguarded thoughts and to dream for one night under the pale moon.

Despite her brave words to

(_her most useful hostage_)

Her words to Petra. That she intended to keep her friends as she walked her path... she knew this to be impossible in any case and wondered for the first time, as her thoughts ran wild into nostalgia and paranoia both, if somehow Solon had known and the true purpose of his repellent works was to ensure she WAS alone in the end. She laughed, darkly, just once. It would not be beyond them. Isolation. Hm. A motive she hadn't considered, though it hardly required such _effort_ on his part; once the time came to reveal the truth it would be wholly unnecessary.

And yet...

Yet she was tired and could not move even to stand, not just yet, and was so cold she could barely feel her feet, and she couldn't run any longer.

Even in the moment she hadn't known what possessed her; what made her bold.

Not bold! _Afraid._ Desperate. That was what she'd been. She had wanted so badly to make sure that--

(_she didn't notice how bloody our hands are?_)

That her teacher didn't think her associated with that _horror._ Even though it was so, so utterly damning, she hoped that maybe, somehow, the force of her feeling

(_HA_)

could reach her, and make it clear. Make her understand or at least believe that it wasn't HER. That another atrocity of that sort was...

She found herself laughing, incongruously, as the tension in her body slowly began to relax, and she slumped forward, gently.

She wanted her teacher to love her, too. To protect her again, from all this. From her... enemies? allies? conscience? Yes.

To see her darkly flashing eyes and the determination she had seen at their first meeting in that place, when she felt her heart beat in time with the strangely-dressed sellsword. To watch that stony face filled with quiet fury on her behalf again. To make her care for Edelgard and...

To make her forgive her for what she would do.

She'd never cared for such a thing as absolution before. It would be most inconvenient for one who sought to kill the spawn of the goddess if she were overly concerned with such things. But from her teacher it would have meant everything.

The girl, Edelgard, sat in the cold and dark, and listened to the whispering of the wind, and let her thoughts run free. Over her professor's subtle smiles and surprising thoughtfulness and strong hands and scarred arms, beneath her bracers. Of holding those hands. Of being held, and...

And as she allowed herself one night of fantasy, the sky lightened, and her scarred and twisted body slowly found the strength to move again.

The day was already half over when the Black Eagles' class head approached the monastery gates. Her long and lonely walk through the cold, alone, after disposing of her armor in a forgotten ruin some miles from the monastery's walls, was quiet and undisturbed by without or from within. And her heart felt somehow lighter and unburdened in its own way.

She still did not dare hope, but greeting daybreak with thoughts of her teacher's smile running through her head...

Even if she could not escape her bloody fate. Even if she could not simply be a girl, in love...

She could not help but note how beautiful the winter sunrise was despite the exhaustion that ran down to her bones.


	2. Alone/Battlefield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short writing projects done for a discord fan community, uploaded weekly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A moment of quiet reflection and longing in the midst of a teeming crowd.
> 
> A mercenary's work is never truly done.
> 
> (Originally written for a one-hour writing exercise in a friend's edeleth discord. The prompt chosen this week was "A lonely mercenary stood at the edge of a battlefield bathed in crimson." This work is presented in the state it was completed after an hour of writing with limited time to prepare and edit, and is unbeta'd, in the spirit of the project.)

_Inattention is death; yours, or that of the man beside you. When the enemy is about, when the situation is uncertain, whether combat has begun in earnest or no, you keep your eyes peeled, keep your ears open, keep chatter to a necessary minimum. Don't obsess over any single thing; keep control of your thoughts and feel your way through, without fear._

The most basic teachings and the most broadly-applicable, regardless if the battleground is a treacherous mountain pass or an elegant banquet, and as useful to an itinerant mercenary as to the Emperor's housecarl -- a mercenary in all but name, simply contracted to do her work on a different battleground. One where the ocean of crimson before her was imported silk dyed Imperial carmine, rather than... well. Different times. Not always unhappier. Certainly lonelier.

Clad in her long black dress, light quilted armor concealed beneath, silvered steel blade at her hip, Byleth cast her gaze -- unfocused, alert, emotionless -- over the assembled guests and courtiers, porters and aides.

Or, to dispense with noble pretense, the servants and the scroungers. Not that she was different, she supposed, in their eyes. What was the word Hubert had referred to the two of them as? House von Hresvelg's camarilla? To have the ear of the most powerful woman in the known world felt to her like a tawdry dream, and yet as she'd grown accustomed to working closely with nobility, she'd come to understand that half the attendants here would give their right arm for it. She didn't envy them for what her love would do to their ambitions.

As her gaze scanned the room, she lingered on the pale skin of her Emperor's bare back, her delicate neck, heard the sound of her polite laughter at a remark she couldn't quite hear. She admired her poise and the way she handled herself in this arena, so much more sure and graceful than she, though she was determined not to remain so very far behind her dear student. She stared openly at the shape of her body in her crimson gown, caught the warmth in her glance as her El turned back to her bodyguard for, oh, perhaps the tenth time that evening, and found that as she'd been watching the Emperor she had been slowly smiling wider in what she had to suppose was a rather unprofessional way, but hang professionalism.

She wondered if the foreign guests, or for that matter the Emperor's own court, had the slightest idea she had so much more than merely the Emperor's ear. Their safety depended on such things being at most idle rumor, but there was something that had grown inside her recently, something that smoldered in the pit of her stomach, a general sort of ambient resentment at the circumstance they found themselves in now, even months after the end of the war. A sour and desperate feeling, an ache, something needful and intense in a way that was new and unwelcome. The contrast between the light feeling in her chest when they had space and time to speak, the warmth when they had a few precious hours to share together in private, was shocking. She wanted to be there by her love's side, to rest her hand on the small of her back throughout the night and whisper into her ear and feel the warmth of El's skin against her own, openly, without fear of the danger it might place the both of them in.

She found herself staring (not for the first time that night, either -- she was every bit as hopeless as El, she knew) as a gloved hand tucked a loose lock of silver hair behind an ear that blushed a pale pink as their eyes met; her gaze remained locked, heart aching, as she watched the fleeting, sad look on her face as El turned back to her guest. That same _something_ flared with heat at the thought of crossing the room to Edelgard's side and making the nature of their relationship perfectly obvious to everyone. Of the depth of their feelings. And perhaps of who was the master and who the servant, hm? A hand upon her pale cheek, or to grip her golden crown tight, or...

Hmmm. Pleasant to consider but not productive.

Back once more to quietly watching the comings and goings, letting her heart settle and blush fade. Housecarl Eisner kept a running tally in her head of those Hubert had briefed her on, though she already knew most by heart; the attendants loyal to (and replaced by) their mutual nemeses, those with uncertain loyalties and the merely greedy. Following their individual movements was no difficulty; the real sleight of hand was in the pretense that she didn't regard them at all, something that her "noble patron" had impressed upon her was a vital part of her new duties, when she'd first begun training for her role at the Emperor's side. Of course the title bestowed upon her by the authority of house von Vestra was not only antiquated but essentially meaningless, as nobody had held such in centuries. But as relatively low as the position was, she was grateful; it served well enough as a necessary formality to grant her the unquestioned right to be a part of the Imperial court and remain constantly near Her Majesty until...

Until. Very soon. She felt heat rising from her body at the thought.

For the time being, though... this. Working with her closest comrade, the man who perhaps understood her better than anyone else, her expertise was still required in much the same capacity as ever. Watchfulness, positioning, strategizing, and above all, the agonizing wait before swords were drawn and life was spilled. For the moment to throw herself into a life or death struggle, hopefully for the last time. For the moment to finally put to rest the sickening, cold fury she'd carried inside since she learned the first appalling truth about her beloved student's struggles, and curious attraction blossomed into an unspoken resolve to walk beside the scarred and lonesome young noble girl no matter where her path led, no matter the divide in their standing...

For the day she could, in safety and in good conscience and very much in love, cross the room, pushing through the crowds that gathered around the feet of the Emperor hoping for the tiniest show of her favor, and demonstrate to everyone what they meant to one another.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This was originally done for a one-hour writing exercise in a friend's edeleth discord. The single-word prompt was "Sunrise."
> 
> This was my first fanwork, um, ever, of any kind! Written under extreme time pressure and with no opportunity to be beta'd. As a personal policy i'm doing only limited editing after the completion time for clarity and spellchecking and otherwise leaving these works as they were completed, in whatever state they may have been when the time was up.


End file.
